Erin Collins 1st place Expert @ Stan Crane Memorial ICUP in Draper

I did everything I could to get my legs to recover asap after the tri on Saturday…I ate some good food immediately after and even managed to get back into the icy lake that we swam in. This is a big recovery secret! Sunday I went out for a nice spin on my cross country solitude bike. Monday when the race began I just thought to myself be patient and don’t start out too fast. I was sitting in the middle of the pack for the first few miles of the first lap and I had the first place girl in my sights. I started feeling good so I picked up my pace a bit and passed 3 girls…now I was in 2nd position.

On one of the last steep climbs before the final descent for that lap I saw a pro girl up ahead and thought ‘no way is the KC Holley’ well it wasn’t, but it was another fast girl that races the pro circuit Xterra race series. I rode in front of her for the remainder of that lap and then right behind her for the 2nd lap. On the second lap I saw the first place expert girl stopped to “unsuck” her chain, I yelled some words of sympathy and encouragement and took off. I managed to put four minutes on her during my remaining descent and half lap. She told me after the race that one of the expert riders was giving her a hard time and told her that we both needed to move up to pro. Well that’s good I told her because I was planning on doing the next race in the pro category!